The board has been working on putting some final details together to get us closer to our goal of being a 501(c)3.

There is a new set of bylaws coming out in future, members that are current on their dues will be eligible to vote on their approval. To be current you need to have paid your dues before the first of the month.

More details to come, as the bylaws are not actually done yet, we are working with lawyers to finish it up, but expect it to happen in the next month or two.

There will be a formal announcement that goes out to all members before anything happens.

Everything to do with the last board meeting is there, the May 11, 2011 documents. The meeting minutes, Articles of Incorporation, Bylaws, and etc. Including the notice that should soon be sent out about the meeting.

I don't think the survey results have been released yet. I thought I heard they were nearly done, but that was before the lease panic started.

survey is about half processed, i'll prolly not get to more if it today, but should before this weekend. as a teaser, a lot of folks want a laser cutter, and our membership seems to run a wide diagonal line through the shop and NE mpls.

90% done, they've taken a back burner as the lease exploded and the annual meeting got exciting. i've been putting in 40-60 hour weeks just on that for most of may, muchless other tcm stuff, or little things like looking for a job. if you've got easy instructions on how to swap columns and rows in open office, i *MIGHT* be able to get them out tomorrow.

I understand that a report is to be written, with the raw data included by section. Perhaps as a compromise, some of the sufficiently anonymized raw data could be released as soon as possible, while the report writing is underway? Or a quick & dirty summary of some of it? This survey was an awesome idea, which has turned into another pain point for the group. I'd like to see it soothed as soon as possible.

I suggest that next time we do something like this, we keep the "what tools/areas are important to you" stuff completely separate from any personal information to begin with, which should allow any reasonably well-designed survey site to prepare an acceptable report for us automatically & immediately. We create the survey on surveymonkey or some crap, get a list of members who are current, send each of them a link. Avoid free-text fields, just have the appropriate machine-processable questions about what people want to use the shop for. Boom; "95% of members would like a laser cutter". Done, Miller Time.